South Carolina Man Ordered to Pay Author in Defamation Case

A North Charleston, S.C., man has been ordered to pay $75,000 to best-selling author Fern Michaels for defamation.

The Herald-Journal of Spartanburg reports Wednesday that Craig Dilley must pay for forwarding a defamatory email to a website that promoted Michaels and other romance authors.

The author filed the lawsuit under her legal name, Mary Kuczkir, against Dilley, his sister – former Spartanburg County resident Shelley Dangerfield – and their mother. The sister wrote the email and sent it to her mother, who forwarded it to Dilley.

Dangerfield was married at the time but in a relationship with the author’s former son-in-law.

The court found Dilley acted in reckless disregard for the truth and intended to harm the author’s reputation, but the emails between Dangerfield and her mother were ruled privileged.